5 Tips for Video Amplification (Friday5)

The widespread proliferation of mobile and tablet devices has created a boom in digital video content consumption in the past few years, and video ad spending in the US is growing with it. eMarketer projects overall spend will nearly double from $7.8 billion this year to $14.4 billion by 2019. If you or a client is new to video, consider these five tips for video amplification:

1. Production considerations

Because video content can be expensive to produce professionally, consider the supplementary content that can be created during the video shoot itself. If the end product is a premier video, plan to shoot a short teaser for Instagram and/or bring a photographer to capture behind-the-scenes imagery and b-roll footage. This is especially important if you have limited time with a spokesperson or other cast members.

2. Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are becoming more video-focused with the former’s forthcoming pre-roll style video ads and the latter’s recent introduction of autoplay video. While they’re great for organic content amplification, both offer robust video ad targeting directly in users’ feeds using a cost-per-view model. One of Facebook’s paid video strengths is video retargeting, allowing advertisers to reach a consistent audience with sequential videos. Twitter excels with viewability, setting the standard at 100% in-view while Facebook videos autoplay when at least one pixel of the video is on the screen.

3. Native

Native advertising platforms like ShareThrough and Nativo give advertisers new options for targeting and a broader audience to complement social video ads. These platforms serve your video on premier publishers’ sites in the same format as their own content for a more authentic, in-feed experience. Videos can be played on publishers’ sites without clicking off the page, creating a seamless experience for the user.

4. Publisher partnerships

Partnering with media companies that have an ad network across multiple sites helps achieve targeted scale and reach for big-budget projects. They can serve your video to an audience segment (i.e. millennials, business travelers, etc) across their properties in the form of pre-roll or an in-unit display video ad. Some may give the option to embed a YouTube video (Flash) or use the native video file (HTML5) – the former isn’t mobile-friendly but attributes views to your YouTube channel while the latter is better for a consistent experience across devices and tracks metrics separately.

5. Measurement

With any video campaign requiring the video live on disparate platforms, it’s important to track view counts and impressions in a central location for comprehensive reporting. Tracking these details together allows for cost-efficiency analysis overall and by platform, in addition to data indicating which platform was best for driving conversions, shares and the like. Finally, before launching a video campaign, understand the difference in how platforms measure a “view.” Facebook and Twitter charge after a video plays for 3 seconds, so looking at completed views or views to 95% completion are good secondary view metrics.